User:Lsherman3/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Artist's book

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it reflects my primary academic discipline. The Wikipedia article itself has been the subject of debate within the field, especially since some practitioners are concerned with the way the field is represented to general audiences. My preliminary impression is that the article does not have a single organizing principle, so information that is organized chronologically ends up disconnected from other categories, like current issues and debates. Some categories seem to have outsized importance, suggesting they should be removed or shown to be of greater importance using reliable sources, or that other equally important topics should be added.

Lead section
The “Overview” section is somewhat disjointed. Some related ideas are presented but not connected with one another, at both conceptual and mechanical levels. Certain concepts that are expanded on later in the article aren’t signposted clearly in the overview. Moving the “Overview” before the table of contents would provide more context for the sections that are listed.

Content
The article’s chronological organization into Early history, 1909-1937, and Post-WWII is too broad (especially since the early history includes only William Blake). The introduction of digital technologies, electronic publishing, and the Internet have had a major impact on the field, which is not reflected in the article. Any of these paradigm shifts might warrant its own section in the chronology. The sub-category “Proliferation and reintegration into the mainstream” implies more than it actually covers; the title does little to organize the content it includes.

Breaking from chronological categorization to cover “Art book fairs” opens up other aspects of the field that are not covered in the article. The Art book fairs section is essentially just one quote from a single article. (Additionally, qualifications like “recent” are not helpful to readers who don’t know when the sentence was written.)

Some of the content under the “Critical reception” section might be more appropriate in other areas. For example, the Codex Foundation Book Fair and Symposium seems more relevant to book fairs. However, the fact that many of the fairs have symposia would be relevant to the discussion of critical reception.

The section titled “Critical issues and debate” does not have any citations. Given the phrasing, which raises the question of “critical for whom,” citations and elaborations are needed.

Tone and Balance
Some claims in the article rest on assumptions that aren’t explained or cited. For example, the claim that “As the form has expanded, many of the original distinctive elements of artists' books have been lost, blurred or transgressed” doesn’t stipulate what elements qualify as original or distinctive. Some claims aren’t supported by the evidence cited and need to be moderated (e.g., “most writers on the subject cite the English visionary artist and poet William Blake (1757–1827) as the earliest direct antecedent”). Quotes by a small number of theorists/practitioners (e.g., Michalis Pichler) represent only a narrow perspective. These claims could be cited rather than quoted and balanced with other voices.

The article’s talk page reveals previous debates about how the field is represented and which practitioners are considered representative. At this stage, the article seems to suffer from unspoken assumptions more than explicit attempts at persuasion.

Sources and References
There are claims that need to be cited. There are quotes that could simply be claims with citations. A wider variety of perspectives should be included, especially if the article continues to use quotes for key definitions or concepts. The “Further Reading” section is more robust than the references reflected in the actual article (although resources could be added to this section too).

Organization and writing quality
The article has numerous issues, from structural organization to grammar and style. Most notably, there is no consistent use of “artist book,” “artist’s book,” or “artists’ book,” even though that question is listed as a debate in the field. Other style issues are more general, but still negatively impact the reading experience. The organization seems like the biggest issue with the article — it has outgrown chronology, but there isn’t a systemic way of organizing the information that falls beyond chronology.

Images and Media
The images do little to illustrate specific topics mentioned in the article, but there aren’t enough of them to give a comprehensive sense of the field. Talk page discussion reveals that concerns about copyright are hampering the addition of images.

Talk page discussion
The article is rated C-class. It is part of the following WikiProjects: Visual Arts; Books; Poetry / William Blake.

Copyright and photos are one major issue in the Talk page. Settling on the style for the term “artists’ book” is a major effort that doesn’t seem to have made its way into the article itself. It seems previous versions of the article had more sections that weren’t organized by chronology, but they were deemed irrelevant or not yet suitable given the state of the article at the time.

Overall impressions
The article still needs a lot of work.

The chronological history is the most focused, structured part of the article, but it needs more granular divisions, especially to account for recent developments in the field. The Further Reading section is also fairly strong. A systematic approach to topics outside of chronological history would help editors cover other topics in a balanced way and add important topics that are missing. Some sections of the article are underdeveloped, others are poorly developed.